


Thompson, Furillo, Snider, Robinson, Hodges, Campanella, Reese, Bridges, and Erskine

by APgeeksout



Category: Sports Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:43:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Casey! Why are there rodents in my office?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thompson, Furillo, Snider, Robinson, Hodges, Campanella, Reese, Bridges, and Erskine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Waldo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waldo/gifts).



“Casey!” Dan's shout carried across the bullpen, and Casey could imagine heads swiveling at the workstations. “Why are there rodents in my office?”

“Actually,” Casey called as he emerged from the editing corridor, “they're not rodents. It's a common misconception, but ferrets are mustelids. _Mustela putorius furo_ , to be precise,” he said, moving past Dan and into the office. 

“Great. Thank you for the zoology lesson. However, I now have to ask you 'Why are there mustelids in my office?'” Dan followed him in from the bullpen, looking dubiously at the wire cage sitting in the center of the office. 

“They're Charlie's. Lisa's chapperoning his class field trip to D.C., and I guess they get kind of stir-crazy when they're alone.” 

“I know how they feel.” Something in Danny's voice made Casey look up, try to read his partner's face. Dan cleared his throat and rushed on, “I also know that you haven't been married to Lisa for years now. You don't have to let her ruin your life anymore.”

“My life is just fine. Charlie doesn't need me for much anymore. When he asks me to make sure that Bonnie and Clyde get their exercise, you'd better believe I'm gonna turn my office into a ferret gymnasium.”

“Okay, I get it.”

“Good. Now close the door so I can let them out of the cage.”

Danny shook his head, but shut the door and went back to the armchair and the wire reports without further complaint. 

Casey knelt in front of the cage to undo its fastenings. Clyde sprinted out and charged at him, tapping the carpet with his feet and hopping left and right, chattering away like a pugnacious flyweight talking trash. 

“You wanna dance, Clyde? Come and get some!” He lunged at the larger of the ferrets and let it pounce on his hand the way Charlie said they liked to play best. Bonnie leapt into the fray, and he dodged away and play-fought, outnumbered. After a couple of minutes, the ferrets rolled each other up out of his reach, and he looked up to find Dan watching him with a smile. 

“What?”

“Nothing. Just, you and Charlie are fine, Casey. He trusts you with this stuff. I think about how that would go with my old man, and-”

A few quick taps sounded at the door, followed by Kim's “Guys?”

“Come on in, but don't let the vermin out,” Dan called to her. 

“They're actually mustelids. Domesticated to hunt vermin,” Casey clarified while she ducked into the room. 

“Whatever they are, they're cute!” she pronounced. “Look at their little noses! Hi, guys!” She tore a sheet out of her legal pad and wadded it up, throwing the paper ball easily toward the critters, who worried at it with zeal. 

“What's up?” 

“Casey, Chris and Dave want to run effects for 18 and 27 by you. Jeremy's got MLB trade rumors you'll want to hear. Dana has a clip she wants you both to see. The guy I'm seeing wants me to meet his grandma. The sandwich cart in the lobby has ham and swiss on that great pumpernickel today. And Natalie wants to borrow you for a few minutes before the six o'clock rundown, Dan.” 

Kim watched the ferrets play for another moment, then headed back to work, closing the door behind her carefully. 

“If I go check in with graphics, can you make sure these outlaws don't chew on any power cords?” 

“Mongoose suicide watch. I'm on it.” Dan chuckled grimly. 

Casey tossed a gym towel over the tussling ferrets and headed for the door, but stopped, hand on the knob. “You're doing okay?” 

Danny looked up, forehead scrunched in exaggerated confusion, an opaque Television Personality face. “Me? There's pumpernickel on the sandwich cart. I'm golden.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I'm feeling so okay, I might just break out the puns. I'm just gonna be in here, ferreting out mustelid-based puns, weaseling them into tonight's script. You don't want any part of that, Casey.”

Casey groaned in disapproval and left Dan and Bonnie and Clyde to supervise each other.

 

 

“I got my eye on you, polecats.” Dan drawled. 

Casey wasn't sure what he expected to find when he edged back into the office, but it probably wasn't this. The floor was strewn with wads of paper of all sizes and varieties – he identified newsprint, post-it notes, magazine stock, takeout receipts - and empty boxes. The top of Casey's desk was covered in a thin strata of the paper clips and ink pens that used to occupy the boxes Bonnie and Clyde were now alternately filling with and emptying of paper shreds. 

Dan perched on the edge of his own desk, watching them, and Casey stopped at his side. “Looks like my boy picked the wrong ferret-sitter.”

“I am a man of many talents, my friend.” 

“That you are.” He dropped an arm over Danny's shoulders. “That you are.” 

Dan shifted, sagged against him, and they stayed that way for a while, the office silent save for the ferrets' chittering. 

“Hey, Danny? For your birthday this year, I'm thinking ferrets. A whole business of 'em. Four or five.” 

“Nine.” Dan laughed, quiet and real. “Name 'em for the '51 Dodgers lineup.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide, Waldo! 
> 
> All of my ferret knowledge comes from my memory of a childhood friend who owned one and that quack veterinarian, Dr. Google, so if I've made anyone do something infelicitous to them, know that it's ignorance not malice! (And pretend that in the next scene, Isaac turns up and saves the ferrets and the day!)


End file.
